Even before the Norwegians published Mikushin's real name, The Insider and Bellingcat believed that this was a GRU officer named Mikhail. The pseudo-professor left enough digital traces for such a conclusion.
So, for example, the password that he used for his university account was used by several other people – and among these accounts, two definitely belonged to him, since they contained his Brazilian name. But the other two were interesting because they were registered at Russian addresses. One is agrandefamilia@mail. ru – referred to the Brazilian series and, apparently, also belonged to him, and the other – mika-invasor @ rambler. ru – gave an indication that the owner's name is Mikhail. Invasor is translated from Portuguese as "invader" – Mikushin needed only a parachute dragging behind his back to expose him.
And if suddenly someone does not guess that the “invader Mikhail” is he, Mikushin, he used another password … Containing his last name:
Apparently, Mikushin used the mika-invasor email account for a very long time, since it was chosen for the creation of LiveJournal (now deleted and not preserved) and ICQ.
The Insider and Bellingcat were able to obtain a photo from Mikushin's driver's license, which made it possible to confirm that Mikushin and Professor Giammaria are the same person:
As The Insider found out, Mikhail Mikushin was born in Yekaterinburg, lived on Malysheva Street, and graduated from high school in 1994. At the age of 26, he moved to Moscow, where he lived in an officer's dormitory at the Military Diplomatic Academy (VDA) of the GRU at the address: st. People's Militia, house 52, bldg. 4, apt. 45. GRU officers are registered in this building of the dormitory, who are being trained at the 1st faculty of the ACA (training GRU officers to work abroad as intelligence officers under diplomatic cover and illegal immigrants). It should be noted that officers no lower than a captain and already with knowledge of a foreign language (in the case of Mikushin, it was Portuguese) are taken to this faculty of the ACA. It is very possible that Olga Kolobova (Adela Kuhveld) was his classmate, because they are the same age.
In 2006, Mikushin graduated from the academy and was able to get a Brazilian passport on the grounds that he allegedly has a Brazilian mother (a classic trick of illegal immigrants from the GRU, which Olga Kolobova, who introduced herself as Adela Kuhveld, had already written about in The Insider, unsuccessfully tried to use) . In the same year, he bought himself an apartment in Moscow on Novokurkinskoye Highway and, apparently, remained in Moscow for some time.
Already an experienced Grushnik, in 2010 Mikushin started a VKontakte page under a real name, set Ostap Bender as a userpic, and described his views as “ultra-conservative”:
It is interesting that Mikhail's brother, Ivan Mikushin , not only does not share his "ultra-conservative" views, but is also a staunch oppositionist, participated in the 2011 protests, donated to Navalny and participated in Smart Voting.
In 2011, Mikushin, obviously, had already become quite skilled in Portuguese for legend and went to study in Canada at the University of Calgary (fortunately, for a foreign ear, Russian and Portuguese accents are very similar).
Apparently, he, like Kolobova, continued to come to Russia (although this was unthinkable for illegal immigrants in Soviet times). In any case, in June 2015 he renewed his driver's license in Russia, and a few months later he was campaigning in Canada for the New Democratic Party:
In 2020, he was in Russia again, bought an electric scooter and was not too lazy to write a review:
For some time, Mikushin was engaged in “research” work in Canada and in 2019 even published an article justifying the need for new military bases in the Arctic. In 2021, Mikushin arrived in Norway for a research program at the University of Tromsø, which included, among other things, the study of "hybrid threats". But his turbulent activity was not limited to Norway. For example, just a month ago he took part in a training in Vilnius organized with the support of the EU and dedicated to the “hybrid war”.
One of the topics of the training was, for example, “how to respond in the event of sabotage at the Nord Stream gas pipeline” – and indeed, a very relevant topic for the Kremlin:
On Tuesday, October 25, Mikushin was detained on his way to the university. His lawyer was told that they were planning to deport him. However, deportation to Russia will hardly be possible if Mikushin is not recognized as a Russian citizen in Moscow. So far, the Russian embassy has angrily denied the accusations, accusing Norway of spy mania.